Family Visit

My mother in law, sister in law and brother in law (the 50ish year old man who has autism and lives with my mother in law) are going to be visiting some time in August.

We have relatives with a lake home, just a small modest cottage, and they want to have all three of them over for a couple of nights.  I hope that the facilities they have will work OK for her, given her mobility problems.

There is a small "beach" in back of their "camp" but as I recall from the one time we've been there (maybe 4 years ago?) the ground was not very even. I'm not sure she would be able to get into water, a boat, etc.   She'll need to bring the raised toilet seat she uses.   So I hope she can stay otherwise happy.  I'm curious to see how they've fixed up the place in the 4 or so years since we have visited.  And, I am very curious to see her once again (we saw this a little bit at the motel we stayed at a couple of weeks ago) in something not her "native environment".  Her spirit is still strong but her body is less and less able to deal with adversary.  I fear for if she falls again.  I pray there is no accident during her visit.  So my husband is talking to her now, trying to get a feel for what she thinks about going to this cottage and what she may need.

I'm glad she is getting out of the house, overall.  I suspect that although she says she does mall walking (at the slow pace she can walk) that she is really spending a lot of weekday time in front of the TV.  Can't prove it.  On weekends, she has a lot of family events (birthday parties, that kind of thing) but we can see that she is starting to have some short term memory problems.  For example, she confused coming up here with a birthday party and was about 3 weeks off when she gave us the date of the trip up here.  And, she got my son calling her confused with one of her nieces.  Stuff like that.  Hasn't missed any appointments yet according to my sister in law (geographically the closest of the 4 children she raised to her) but that may be a matter of time.  More mental stimulation can't be bad.

I hope I remember all of this when I'm in my 80's.  (maybe Blogger will still be around, and I can reread all of my old posts.)

And also.....

There may be a long distance trip in her future too.  Earlier this year she spent about 10 days visiting relatives in Florida. (she flew down with other family members.)  They all treated her like a queen.  The brother in law stayed with the same family members who have the lake cottage, and both we and they spent "quality time" with him.  And she spent quality time without him.

Well, at the wedding we went to (see the "Cheesequake" post") the Florida relatives she stayed with came up here.  They invited her back for next year.  She didn't seem 100% ready to go.  I hope we have time to discuss this when she is up here.  I want her to be able to go down there with peace of mind.

Her world is getting smaller and smaller and I want to keep my arms wedged in that opening that is closing long enough that she can get out some more.  I'm sure all of us do.  It's such a balance to balance her needs with her desire to stay independent.

More later.